


The Lonely Traveler

by LilyRosetheDreamer



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Action, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Ginyu Force is his family dammit, Jeice is not having a good time in this fic, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Trauma, and he will get them back, dark themes, don't make deals with a demon kids, hopefully this will be a good fic, team as a family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-02 22:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8686339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyRosetheDreamer/pseuds/LilyRosetheDreamer
Summary: Jeice is the last surviving member of the Ginyu Force after it all goes wrong on Planet Namek. With nothing to his name and nothing to live for, he can only try to survive and stagger to the end of the line. Unless of course...someone offers him an alternative.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! It’s about time I started on a DBZ fic I teased a fair while ago and I hope it lives up to everyone’s expectations. Here’s the prologue for TLT.

It’s all gone to shit on Namek.

No, better yet, everything’s just… _gone._  

He knows they’re gone somehow, even as the glass in front of his broken tank spiderwebs outwards, splintering and cracking under the pressure and heat. The sound comes from miles away to his ears, muffled by green liquid as they are, and his legs stab against him in protest when he feebly kicks out. The healing pod is clearly broken and he’s drowning, water seeping into the sides of the mask - useless now that the tube connecting it to oxygen is severed. His arms strike out as he becomes more alert, white hair floating about his head as he flails once more. There’s a far-off booming, distant and constant and his fist pounds on the fragile glass. 

He needs to move.

He MUST get out.

Any awareness he’s gained from being awoken suddenly is slipping away, his vision blurring and darkening at the corners as he continues to beat at the glass, his lungs burning and the repetitive movement growing weaker. One leg spasms outwards. 

Gods, he’s going to drown in the same liquid that used to save him. 

Something shatters under his gloved wrist as his hand uncurls and begins to slip downwards. His oxygen-starved brain is forcing hazy eyes shut. 

The world drains from acid-green to pale, muted grey and he clumsily pulls off the oxygen mask, gulping down his first breath of air in what feels like years,the back of his throat parched with thirst and latent fear. Colour begins to return to his vision with flashing lights and he blinks rapidly to try and clear them, wincing when he moves and feels his ribs grind together. He’s only half-restored and, judging by the blaring alarms in the ship and crimson light, Frieza’s ship isn’t in the best shape either. Sparks fly from wiring half-ripped from the wall and smoke seeps from a vent, orange embers glowing behind it. He’s got to leave before the whole place possibly blows to smithereens. 

Trembling, he grasps at the shards of glass and the edges of the door and pulls, dragging himself though the gap. The unforgiving material slices into his legs and he hisses, falling to the metal floor and splaying outwards as dark blood runs down his legs in a thin stream. 

“Fuck,” he whispers and manages to claw his way to his unsteady feet. 

The ground is vibrating beneath him and he starts to wonder if there’s something happening _outside_. Is there something waiting? Something with a power level that overshadows his in a nuclear cloud? Is he going to be ripped apart when he gets one step outside?

He thinks of the Saiyan who dismantled Recoome with no more effort than a child banging two blocks together. He thinks of Vegeta blistering his body with heat and a hateful smile and his own broken cry - .

Letting himself drop like a stone at the last second…it somehow ensured his survival.

Nausea travels through his throat as he stumbles over a piece of rubble jutting out in the middle of the hall and he braces himself on the wall, leaving a bloody hand print glistening wetly as he does. His skin weeps from barely healed burns, peeling brown patches of damaged…something down his arms and bleeding torso. His visions whites out and he sways. The windows are shut, darkened not by metallic shutters but by angry black clouds and ominous volcanic ash drifting past and it calls to him, the fire and magma kindling the stomped out embers in the bottom of his belly. Panting, he curls in on himself and limps, his booted feet dragging through dust and silky grey ash, leaving an obvious trail behind himself. But it doesn’t matter now. 

He’s becoming aware that he’s been left behind. If anyone survived, they most likely fled the moment the planet began to crumble and took the only escape routes available. 

He’s not going to die in battle like the rest of the Force did. He already proved himself too much of a craven for that when he left - !

A torn glove comes up to his mouth, his eyes stinging. 

He wants to pray to his deities, but he’s going to hell anyway, so that’s useless to him now. He reaches the gap and wraps his hand around the charred shell of the ship, his legs threatening to give away before he pulls himself shakily together and staggers outside. Sweat trickles down the back of his neck from his damp hair and he takes in the utter destruction of the once peaceful Namek.

Before the Force, before anything, he remembers a kind voice telling him about the God of Destruction, a bed time story for a delighted, overactive imagination. It weaves images of planets colliding in a titanic surge, of mountains toppling under the flick of a finger and of golds and red and fire surging and consuming. Perhaps Beerus passed through while he was unconscious, he thinks dumbly as he nearly loses his balance under a shuddering eruption. Steam and magma shoots up from a hole nearby and he shields his face and eyes, moving away and scanning the skies to search for any incoming danger. He curses the absence of his scouter and nearly doubles over at the pain that shoots through his torso and limbs. Another rumble has him scrambling for shelter as the earth in front of his feet splits into a wide canyon and his breathing spikes as he starts to hyperventilate. 

He’s going to die. 

His rear end hits the torn up grass and he slumps, hunching in on himself. Green eyes stare blankly at the blood pooling under his legs. 

“Hey!”

He startles badly, biting back a moan of pain as he does. He’s imagining that voice, surely? A last moment of delirium before he’s engulfed in flames and nothing. 

“Hey!”

Someone’s in front of him - when did they move? 

And there’s gold, a strong colour that caresses his dirty cheeks - he wants to lean into it and hide. A big hand clasps his shoulder and his sight blurs as he tries to see who it is. 

“You’re with the Ginyu Force! C’mon, c’mon, we’ve got to go **now**!”

His head tilts forward as he’s suddenly lifted, dizzy with blood loss and exhaustion. It’s okay….he’ll be seeing hell soon enough.

He is clutched tightly against something pleasantly warm and he drifts. 

* * *

 

“I’m sorry,”

His eyes are still blank, his wounds are bandaged and he is wrapped up in multiple blankets but he is not warm anymore. 

The Saiyan that helped break apart the Force is perched awkwardly on his bed, a hand holding his own. Apparently they’d only just made it, thanks in part to the Saiyan’s new Super ability and piloting skills, crude as they were. His normally black hair is still blond, though the powerful aura surrounding him is long gone. The Saiyan says he must train to control himself, that they’re going to the nearest planet from the space debris that was once Namek.

He thinks perhaps he would have rather died. 

He thinks that he knew all along.

He thinks.

Thinking is too little, too late. 

Never again will he underestimate anyone. Never again will he be able to laugh freely with a family clustered round him. Never again will he feel the safety of his brothers and commander at his back.

“I tried to stop him, but Vegeta…he was pretty angry and I wasn’t in the greatest shape myself,” Goku says apologetically, a thin attempt at comfort. There’s a disgusting amount of pity in his voice. 

He doesn’t care about any of it. Perhaps he’s in shock.

The Ginyu Force is dead. Lord Frieza is only a name to remember and shudder at.

And Jeice, the last remaining survivor, stares out of the window with broken-shard green eyes and a hand limply lying in Goku’s own. The stars mean nothing to a universe that only takes. 

And neither does Jeice or anyone else.

**Author's Note:**

> There’s the prologue! I hope that you all enjoy reading it. :D


End file.
